My Onion Boy
by Mercy2908
Summary: On Christmas Eve a mother and her boy have nothing much to celebrate


**My Onion Boy**

The door rattled disturbingly. The strong, cold wind outside pushed against it with all its power and the old, rickety door, barely hanging from its hinges, could hardly stand against the strength of the howling wind. The only window in the too wide and empty room was as decrepit as the sparse furniture in the place. A glacial draft sneaked inside through all the gaps and crevices in the run-down poor home as well as the joyous chatter and singing voices of people passing by outside.

A young woman sat hunched back on the only chair in the room. The flames played in animated communion at the fireplace, which contrasted sharply with the grimness that dominated the place. The woman held out her hands in a poor attempt to shed the cold permeating throughout her body. Her clothes were frayed and tattered, and the thin shawl she wrapped up around her body was torn and worn out all over the edge. The fire burning was not strong enough to heat the room, and she cast a look at the cot standing a few feet from her. Drawn by an intense longing, she rose to her weak legs, and hovered over the wooden crib. Her baby peacefully slept under a pile of old, thin blankets and her only coat. She smiled sadly as she caressed his soft face. "My little boy, in hunger's cradle, my poor boy," she muttered as a lone tear ran down her cheek.

Her cold fingers wiped that lonely, weak tear. She turned around and took a couple of trembling steps towards the ugly table. On top of it just one single onion stood, proud and round, its reddish color challenging the grim and gloomy grey walls around. The woman stopped and took the onion reverently as if it were her treasure, her god, her whole life. Today was Christmas Eve, and her room felt colder than ever, but still she had an onion... the last onion she had stolen from a fruit stall a few days before. The woman lifted the large and round vegetable solemnly just like a priest held the host before its consecration, and as the full moon peeked through the window, it looked as if both joined in a kiss, moon and onion, onion and moon.

"My poor, frosty onion. What a feast. You onion, and our hunger. Frost on your days and on my nights," she muttered as she walked back to the fire. Water boiled in the small cauldron at the fireplace, and with a jagged, unsharpened knife she cut the onion into two halves, one of which went straight into the hot water. The layered piece floated and spun on the surface for a few seconds, and then sank down until it disappeared from sight. The woman stirred the soulless liquid with a wooden spoon as her mind drifted back to the past. Last year everything had been so different. She had been glooming, swollen with happiness, and as she celebrated the Lord's birth, she daydreamed about the day her own baby would be born. Then a pair of high heels, a billowing skirt and red lips had crossed her way, and her husband had gone after the scent of that damn woman, and she had been left broken and with the heartbreaking evidence of what it was lost. Every day became harder than the previous one, and money ran out as well as her hopes and strength. There was nobody to turn to, nobody who could help her and her poor baby. Her parents had died too long ago, and his had never cared much about her. It was just her and her boy... her beautiful boy.

The onion-scented water later rested on a cracked plate, and the woman eagerly drank her soup, and then swallowed the onion, layer by layer, leaf by leaf, and she closed her eyes as she felt its soul and body fill her and her sapless breasts. Her poor, little boy was only fed and nursed on onion blood when he should be the king of sugar, and the prince of health. She munched the last tiny piece of onion as if by keeping it in her mouth longer she could fool her stomach, and tonight she would not have to endure the emptiness that coursed all through her body.

A gurgling sound drew her attention, and she rose to her feet and walked to the crib. A smile tugged at her lips when she looked into her baby's open eyes. From under the blankets his little hand appeared, holding and waving a teaspoon. "Aloysius, my love," she started, always pausing before uttering his name. It had been Ralph's idea to name their son after his father in an attempt to smooth the relationship with his family, but she had always thought the name was too huge for his tiny baby, and even after eight months she was not used to it. "How didn't I notice you had kept your teaspoon?" she asked, and the baby let out a happy squeal.

The woman took the spoon from him, dipped it in the remains of her insipid soup, and gently put it into the baby's mouth. The tiny boy sucked at it eagerly as if it were a dummy, and the woman smiled sadly. "Do you like it, my little Teaspoon?" she said. Her baby had taken a liking to the only shiny teaspoon in the house, as if it were a toy for him or even a soundless rattle. From time to time she had started calling him Teaspoon, and as she looked down at her baby, she realized that the name suited him: He was not like other babies; he wasn't rosy, or chubby, or glowing; his skin was almost silvery, his limbs too long, and there were no plump cheeks to pinch. His small head and thin body really made him look like a little teaspoon just like the one he liked playing with.

"It's Christmas Eve today," she said as she took the baby in her arms and went to sit on her chair. "Time for your Christmas dinner, darling." The woman undid the buttons on the front of her dress, and placed her baby on the moon of her breast. Soon the boy started sucking the onion-saddened milk while shaking the teaspoon in his hand in the air. The mother closed her eyes, and started humming softly, a long-forgotten tune that brought her back to better times and past sweet Chrismases. All she could do today was to dream and wish there would be happier times for her baby, another kind of life with laughter and food a galore because this was just not life, this was just a poor imitation, and Aloysius, her little Teaspoon, deserved and needed a full cup of the world.

The baby looked satisfied when she finished feeding him, but she thought wryly that it might be because this is what he was used to, and the only thing he knew. She envied his innocence, his not knowing what he was lacking, and she prayed to God he would never have to find out what was happening in reality. When she placed him back in his cradle and tucked it in, the eight-month let out a joyous laugh, and as his mouth opened in his honest, genuine laughter, five little teeth glistened on its pink gums. Five little teeth looking like tiny jasmine blossoms, the woman thought. His sweet little mouth which one day will be a frontier to love and kisses, to wisdom and words, to good food... to beautiful, plenty food... not the fire of the onion that runs to your lovely little gums...one day... one day, my lovely Teaspoon, your name will just be a reminder of what it was, but it isn't anymore. Hopefully one day.

"Laugh, my boy," she whispered, "and I'll bring you the moon." His open, five-toothed smile was the only thing she could wish for in this gloomy, undesired Christmas Eve. She knew that his laughter frees her from her demons, gives her the wings to carry on, and swept away her suffocating loneliness. Her baby looked and sounded happy when there was not a tiny crumb of happiness to share. That was the gift of childhood. She had woken up from that sweet time too long ago. "Please don't wake up, my love, keep dreaming your innocence," she murmured, caressing his cold face. "Don't turn into my frowning face, my Teaspoon. Keep laughing, keep dreaming, and over all keep living in this onion-flavored life of ours. An onion is our world, and one day the world would seem to you just like our onion, sharp and tearful, but also small because you'll be bigger than that... you'll be much bigger."

**The End**

_Based on the poem "Nana de la Cebolla" by Miguel Hernández_


End file.
